It began with a scream.
Not sharp. Not desperate.Muted.Like someone remembering how to scream, after forgetting too long.
Ji Haneul heard it from the ridge above Yuanlin Hollow, a nameless settlement tucked beneath frost-covered terraces. The smoke rising from the chimneys twisted unnaturally—as if pulled sideways by wind that didn't exist.
He descended without urgency. But each step tightened his grip on the scabbard.
Because something beneath that smoke was wrong.
Not evil.
Empty.
—
The village wasn't burning.
It was alive.
Children ran across the frost-packed mud. Merchants bartered over salt-bricks and dried fish. An old woman ladled soup from a boiling pot near the shrine.
But every eye avoided the center of the square.
A single figure knelt there.
Still.
Wrapped in faded ceremonial robes, face hidden by a lacquered mask with no eyes.
A scent of burnt incense clung to the air, even though no offerings burned.
Haneul passed the villagers slowly. No one stopped him.
He reached the figure and stood quietly.
Then, softly:"Who are you mourning?"
The masked figure did not answer.
But the incense smoke behind them moved—against the breeze.
Backwards.
—
The mask turned.
Beneath it: a woman's face. Hollow-eyed, not from death… but from having seen too much life.
"You're not from here," she said.
"No," Haneul replied.
"You came to sever something."
"I usually do."
She laughed. Once. Dry. "We call this the Smoke That Remembers. It rises every three nights. Follows no wind. Smells like past lives. The elders say it's a punishment."
"For what?"
"For listening."
—
She stood.
And for the first time, Haneul noticed: her feet were bare, her robes tattered along the hems. But her voice carried the weight of a teacher.
"Three months ago," she said, "a man came here. With lanterns."
Black-threaded.
Unlit.
Haneul's fingers tensed. "And?"
"He asked no questions. Only listened. For days. Then he left."
"And what changed?"
"Everything. No one remembers his words. But we started forgetting other things. Who we are. What day it is. Why the shrine has no god."
Haneul glanced around. The villagers were speaking again. But now he realized—they were repeating the same three phrases.
Again. And again.
"They don't know," she said. "They think they're still waiting for the harvest."
Haneul exhaled.
"Show me where he stood."
—
They walked to the shrine.
It was old. Stone broken in half. Incense still fresh—never consumed.
She pointed to the base.
"He stood there. For hours. Then walked the square nine times. Clockwise."
Haneul knelt. Closed his eyes.
The qi was faint. But wrong.Not demonic. Not poisoned. Not cursed.Just… misaligned.
A thread tied into air and thought.
A heart technique, but bent. Forced into something it wasn't meant to be.
He pressed a palm to the stone.
And whispered one of his own forms.
The one for stilling reflection.
The incense snapped. The smoke pulled backward. The villagers froze.
Then—slowly—began to blink.
Their speech changed. Unsteady, hesitant. As if waking.
The woman gasped.
"You severed it."
"No," Haneul said. "I remembered what it tried to forget."
—
He left without asking for thanks.
But before he reached the ridge, the woman called after him.
"I don't remember your name."
"I didn't give it."
She hesitated. Then:
"…Will I forget you too?"
He didn't answer.
Because she would.
That was the way of this war.
Not death. Not battle.Unmaking.
He looked down at his blade.
And whispered, "Not yet."
Then vanished into the trees, before the wind remembered how to carry smoke again.